


liability

by thedarknesswithin (babylxxrry)



Category: Pentatonix, Superfruit
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Character Study, Dancer Mitch, M/M, Mitch Uses She/Her Pronouns, Post-Relationship, Unrequited Love, maybe? - Freeform, please please please check the beginning notes for tws
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 10:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11827275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babylxxrry/pseuds/thedarknesswithin
Summary: you're a liability.the words ring in mitch's head.





	liability

**Author's Note:**

> sorry it's not any of the heavy hitters i've been meaning to work on, just needed to get some stuff out. super nervous about posting this idk why
> 
> songfic for lorde's liability, listen to that on loop for full effect.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: ocd-type behavior in the form of repetitive action as anxiety alleviation/something like that. dm me on [ twitter ](https://twitter.com/babylxxrry) if you're at all concerned or just take a pass on this one. please be safe.

 

Mitch watches the city lights blur together as her taxi driver turns the radio to something softer. It’s almost three-thirty in the morning.

_Baby really hurt me, crying in the taxi._

Mitch isn’t crying, no, not really, but her heart is pounding in her chest and her stomach is clenching and her head feels empty, feels too light, feels like she’s got nothing in there.

_He don’t wanna know me, says he made the big mistake of dancing in my storm._

Of everyone to leave her, she didn’t think it’d be Scott. He’s been there since, well, forever. But Mitch knows she’s not the easiest to be around a lot of times.

_Says it was poison._

Mitch really hopes Scott didn’t mean everything he’d said to her. _You’re so flighty. You keep cancelling on me. You’re a little much for me to handle day in and day out, Mitchy. You’re a liability._ But she knows it’s all true, because she _is_ flighty. She _does_ keep cancelling, but it’s usually because her anxiety won’t stop wailing until she does. She’s a liability.

_So I guess I’ll go home into the arms of the girl that I love, the only love I haven’t screwed up._

The taxi pulls up outside Mitch’s apartment. She unlocks the door.

_She’s so hard to please, but she’s a forest fire._

Everything’s just as it should be, things are in the right place and while the air is a little stale, a window opened will take care of that. Her piano is calling tonight, its keys shimmering in the dim light from the moon. Mitch doesn’t bother turning the lights on.

_I do my best to meet her demands. Play at romance, we slow dance in the living room._

She presses down on the keys. Minor key tonight. She finds herself echoing the song from the taxi. She loses the chord. Looks it up on her phone. Plays it. And again. And loops.

_But all that a stranger would see is one girl swaying alone, stroking her cheek._

It’s not a conscious decision to stand up, but it is to start choreographing the song, over and over and over until she has a routine down, until she feels like she can let the emotion flow through her limbs to her fingertips and toes and the top of her head and she can let go, can cry, can let the music take her muscles to familiar patterns. She can feel each beat of her heart carrying blood and oxygen to the places she needs it. She can feel the air pushing past her fingertips as she trails them around her, over her head, down past her toes. She makes herself feel everything. She makes herself feel the pain in her chest and the back of her throat as she gasps in air through her tears. She makes herself feel the pain in her mind whenever she thinks of Scott. She makes herself feel the pain in her heart when she hears the next lyrics.

_They say, "You're a little much for me. You're a liability. You're a little much for me."_

_So they pull back, make other plans. I understand, I'm a liability._

_Get you wild, make you leave._

_I'm a little much for everyone._

She pushes herself, keeps practicing the routine over and over and over until her body’s crying for a break but she can’t stop, has to keep doing the same steps and motions again and again until she can forget everything, until this pattern can push out all the other memories.

_The truth is, I am a toy that people enjoy til all of the tricks don’t work anymore._

Mitch used to dance for Scott. He’d praise her, tell her how good she was, how cute, how pretty, how _beautiful._ She wants to be beautiful. Maybe if she was better, he wouldn’t have left her. Maybe if she could do more, maybe if she didn’t get tired. She keeps pushing the same routine. Just a little more. Just a little stronger. Just a little more beautiful, more graceful.

_And then they are bored of me._

The thing is, she can’t learn that much that fast. Scott’d still loved what she’d perform, but the praise came less and less often. So she’d pushed herself. She’d pushed to do more, pushed to try new movements, spend more time with Scott, and he’d started loving her more again.

_I know that it’s exciting, running through the night, but every perfect summer’s eating me alive until you’re gone._

They’ve done lots together. Shows, concerts, dinners, movies, quiet nights, all of it. Mitch doesn’t know why it didn’t sit right until now, because now she sees the way Scott’d started falling out of love, the way she kept giving and giving and giving and he didn’t give back.

_Better on my own._

Maybe she can try again, can rebuild herself one routine at a time, starting with this one.

Step.

Touch.

Bend.

Step.

Touch.

Bend.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

_They say, "You're a little much for me. You're a liability. You're a little much for me."_

_So they pull back, make other plans. I understand, I'm a liability._

_Get you wild, make you leave._

_I'm a little much for everyone._

Maybe if she could do more, could please more people, could be less flighty and anxious and picky and specific and precise, maybe Scott wouldn’t have left. Maybe if she were less of a liability. Less of something that could hurt people. Less of something that’s dangerous. Less of something that’s a weak link.

_They're gonna watch me disappear into the sun._

_You're all gonna watch me disappear into the sun._

Mitch doesn’t know when her logical mind finally wins over the side that’s telling her to keep pushing, but she’s shaking and thirsty and still so, so sad. She gets water and ibuprofen for tomorrow morning’s soreness.

 _God,_ the bed is cold without someone sharing it.

The last thing she remembers seeing before darkness swallows her vision is the sunshine peeping over the horizon.

Scott doesn’t love her anymore.

 

 

 

- _fin._

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment or kudos if you wanna make me smile. thanks for reading.


End file.
